Digital Edition
over 3 years ago – Sat, Sep 03, 2022 at 12:44:41 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Less than 5% stock left!
over 3 years ago – Thu, Aug 11, 2022 at 08:58:38 AM

Hi everyone,

I hope you've had a great summer. I just wanted to let you know that there's less than 5% stock left of the iOS App Icon Book 😱 — which means we're going to sell out much sooner than I had originally anticipated. I wanted to give you, the backers that made it all possible, a heads up in case you wanted to snatch up any of the last books before the first editions sell out 👇

📚 The last of the books 📚 

As always, if there's any questions or comments. Feel free to reach out 👋

Michael

Mission accomplished!
almost 4 years ago – Wed, Jun 08, 2022 at 08:04:06 PM

What an incredible few weeks it has been. By now all of the Kickstarter books have shipped (apart from a few survey holdouts) and most of you have received your books! If you’re still waiting for a book— then get in touch! It's very important to us that everyone gets their reward.

I wanted to take a moment to just appreciate that we did it! Mission accomplished. With your help we made this thing real, produced it and shipped almost 3000 tomes of art around the world. A celebration of a craft that clearly means a lot to all of us and honestly something I think will live on for a very long time. Thank you for sharing your excitement with me. It’s been an absolute joy to see so many people receive and relate to the book and your pictures on social media has been the perfect culmination to such a long journey.

I know that I speak for all of the team when I say that we couldn’t have been happier with the reception.

What now?

Now that the Kickstarter rewards and most of the pre-orders have gone out, it’s time to look to the future. We still have some books, stencils and stickers left from the first edition print run and we’ll continue to sell those. But I’d also like to make more things, so today I’m launching something new...

A new shop!

From today all orders will go through flarup.shop — a new platform to sell the things I make. A few of you might be familiar with some of the sticker art I make and you’ll find those in limited quantities on the site along with The iOS App Icon Book and the App Icon Stencil. I have always been fascinated with physical goods and hopefully I’ll be able to make more things available on the shop in the future.

I hope you’ve enjoyed being part of this Kickstarter. My goal has always been to run a fun and honest campaign that brought you along for the ride. I’ll keep this channel open for any book related news or if… you know... We make another campaign 😉 — I hope you'll want to do it again sometime.

Thank you for all the support.

Sincerely,

Michael

Shipping
almost 4 years ago – Wed, May 11, 2022 at 10:08:55 PM

Shipping is in full swing! Last week we shipped around 500 books, primarily to the EU. This week, batches to the US & Canada will go out. It has been absolutely amazing to see so many receive their books and share their excitement on twitter and instagram. We’re loving every post ❤️

I know that a lot of people are still waiting for their books to arrive, but rest assured that Anders is packing as much as he can. This is a massive effort and he deserves all the good vibes we can send him. Once your book ships, you’ll receive a shipping notification from DHL with a tracking number. We hope to have shipped all of the books before the end of May.

Behind the scenes

I wanted to make sure that we took you behind the scenes on the shipping part of the journey as it’s something we’re spending a lot of time and resources on. It’s one of those things that people often take for granted or consider less exciting— but nevertheless it is what makes or breaks a campaign like this and it is how you get your rewards.

We looked at a lot of options for delivering your books. We’ve gathered quotes from several couriers, talked to various logistical platforms and examined price structures of fulfilment centers around the world. We ultimately decided on self-fulfilment, meaning that we’ll manually pack and label every order ourselves. We chose DHL as our shipping partner as they were the most helpful and gave us the most comprehensive offer.

As you’ve seen in other updates, we've rented a small storage room, bought a label printer, packaging materials specifically designed for hardcover books and a table. From here Anders packs and labels all the orders in batches and puts them in cages where DHL then picks them up every other day. This was cheaper than any fulfilment center we could find and it ensures that we have full control of how the books are packaged and handled. Something that was important to us.

The cost of shipping

Good shipping is incredibly expensive and even more so in the current logistical climate of disrupted supply chains and high fuel costs. The various global shortages and the war in Ukraine racks up prices and puts a premium on transporting goods.

Many people have commented on our high shipping costs from the start of the campaign and throughout the pre-order window. I totally get it. It sucks paying essentially half of the cost of the book (29 EUR) in shipping. I wish it was cheaper too, but there’s really nothing we can do about it. We don’t have the volume or the leverage to negotiate lower rates like big shops might and, believe it or not, margins on self-published books aren’t amazing.

I still get emails every day with people asking about cheaper shipping and so I wanted to show exactly how much it costs us to ship an example package. Here’s a single book to the US with the various costs associated.

DHL Costs

• Shipping $27.27
• Go Green $0.16
• Outer Area Fee $1 USD
• Fuel Surcharge (variable)  $7.20
• Emergency Situation Surcharge: $0.47

Our Costs

• Packaging $1.16
• Label $0.17
• Estimated Labour Cost $0.91
• Storage Fee $0.30

Total Cost $37.56 per package.

You’d think that shipping to areas closer to Denmark would be considerably cheaper, but it’s not. EU has its own wonderful subset of taxes that keep prices high. This is why we opted for a flat rate global shipping cost when we set up the campaign. As you can tell from the example above, it is on average more expensive than the shipping we’ve charged. We cover the difference with the margins from the book, but hopefully it gives you a bit of insight into where the money goes.

There’s a lot of things we didn’t know when we set up the campaign, like the weight of the book and the costs associated with packaging and storing, but generally I’m pretty satisfied with our initial estimates. Had we gotten this drastically wrong we could have easily bankrupted the whole project.

Here's a little video of Anders rocking his packaging station.

These next few weeks will be busy as we work towards making sure that every backer receives their rewards. We’re so grateful for the already amazing reception of the book and we can’t wait for everyone to have it. Keep an eye out for those shipping notifications!

Sincerely,

Michael

Unboxing The iOS App Icon Book
almost 4 years ago – Fri, Apr 29, 2022 at 01:51:05 PM

Words fail to describe how it feels to finally hold the result of so much work in your hands. So when I received my first shipment of books, I sat down and did an unboxing video. Here's my first look at The iOS App Icon Book AND a little surprise that we've been working on for all of you 👇

I am so pleased with how the book has turned out and I think you're all gonna absolutely love it. I know every page and every icon in the book. I've spent months pouring over all the details in InDesign. I've printed the entire book on my own printer and I've seen test sheets from the printing press. But nothing compares to finally holding the finished and bound book in your hands. I'm sure you can feel my excitement in the video.

I'm also happy to finally spill the beans on the little extra surprise that you'll receive in your packages. All of that is in the video.

Shipping

We're sending out advance copies to the team, artist spotlights and a few select reviewers. If you have any suggestions for people or publications you think we should reach out to, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to drop me an email to [email protected].

Shipping starts tomorrow. Anders will manually pack all of the orders and ship them out in batches every day from now on and over the next few weeks. It'll take a while before we've fulfilled every order and with the state of international shipping it might take some time before your parcel reaches you. People will start to receive books next week and all throughout May. We hope you'll be patient. It'll be worth the wait.

Sincerely,

Michael